1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of this disclosure relates to a cutter, a printer, and a method of controlling the cutter.
2. Description of the Related Art
Printers for printing receipts are widely used, for example, for cash registers in shops and stores, and for automated teller machines (ATM) and cash dispensers (CD) in banks. In a printer for printing receipts, for example, information is printed by a thermal head on recording paper (thermal paper) while the recording paper is being fed, and the recording paper is cut with a cutter at a predetermined length, i.e., after the predetermined length of the recording paper is fed.
Such a cutter includes a fixed blade and a movable blade. The movable blade moves toward the fixed blade to cut recording paper sandwiched between the fixed blade and the movable blade.
To cut a recording medium such as recording paper with the cutter, the movable blade is moved by rotating a drive motor for driving the movable blade. When a stepping motor is used as the drive motor for driving the movable blade, the stepping motor is rotated at a constant frequency and with a constant electric current (see, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2012-250325 and Japanese Laid-Open
Patent Publication No. 2012-254489).
In a case of a small printer driven by a battery, it is desired to reduce power consumed by the printer. Accordingly, it is also preferable to reduce power consumed by a cutter of the printer as far as possible.